Lig′a-ture.
1. (Printing.) Two or more letters cast on one shank; as ff, ffi, etc. This was formerly very common, and was carried to an excess by Earl Stanhope, who called them logotypes. They are now confined to some diphthongs and the &, which is derived from &, the logotype of et.
2. (Surgical.) a. A thread to tie arteries or veins. b. A wire cord or thread used in removing tumors, etc. See ecraseur. c. The bandage used for phlebotomy. Galen recommends silk thread for tying bloodvessels in surgical operations. The ligation of the femoral artery was first performed by Hunter, about 1785. That of the external iliac by Abernethy, 1796. The internal iliac by Alexander Stevens, in 1812. The common iliac successfully by Dr. Valentine Mott, in 1827. The common carotid by Sir Astley Cooper (successfully), in 1808. The innominata by Mott in 1818, and successfully by Dr. J. W. Smythe in 1864. “Ambrose Pare, born at Laval, in France, in 1509, was a member of the fraternity of barber-surgeons; but, such was the reputation he acquired as an operator, he was made surgeon to four successive sovereigns of France, and, among others, to the weak and cruel Charles IX., by whom, however, although Pare was a Huguenot, his life was saved on the terrible night of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, by detaining him in the royal chamber until morning. With Pare, who lived little more than 300 years ago, we may commence to date the achievements and triumphs of modern surgery. Hitherto, after amputations, the bleeding-vessels had generally been secured by searing them with cauterizing irons, or by dipping the end of the stump in boiling oil or molten lead. Pare revived the ligature, which, although it had [1308] been suggested, and probably adopted in a few cases several centuries before, had been forgotten or abandoned by his immediate predecessors. Such was the mortality under the old process of securing the vessels, that Guy de Chauliac declared it was better to let the limb drop off than to amputate it with the knife; and he advised ligating firmly at the nearest joint, and thus to cause gangrene and sloughing of the limb below. Since Pare wrote, great improvements have been made in the application of the ligature, and its usefulness has been greatly extended; especially is it proper to mention its application for the reduction of vascular tumors, including elephantiasis, for the relief of epilepsy, and for various other maladies in which it is known that organs are suffering from an excess of blood; but the greatest achievements of the ligature have been in the cure of aneurisms.” — F. H. Hamilton, M. D. The ligature occasions obliteration or adhesion of the arterial parietes by cutting through the middle and internal coats, the adhesion being favored by the formation of a coagulum, which acts in some degree as a barrier against the impulse of the blood, and subsequently disappears by absorption.
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| Tiemann's ligature-instruments. |
